Iconic Independent Record Store Going to Pot…Literally

As music sales continue to decline, one iconic independent music store is eyeing a new model for expansion: marijuana sales.

Amoeba Records’ flagship location in Berkeley, California, which opened in 1990, was just approved to become the city of Berkeley’s fifth cannabis dispensary. Billboard reports that the store will convert its jazz section into a 3,000-square-foot dispensary. Called Berkeley Compassionate Care Collective, the new addition will have its own storefront.

“This [dispensary]is absolutely going to help save the Berkeley store,” Amoeba co-owner Marc Weinstein says. He tells TQED that store sales this year are less than half of what they were in 2008, noting that “the market is shrinking all the time.” Although vinyl sales are at a 28-year high and the high-profile Record Store Day event is nearing its tenth anniversary, most independent stores still struggle. In 2015, Weinstein told Billboard “[Marijuana is] one of the few products that a brick-and-mortar retailer can get into and consider making a living at,” noting that the Berkeley store had dropped from employing 90 people to 35.